Tornado in England

Originally posted by junglejake
Anyway, the cloud formation that looked like a whale's tail, on the north side, started to spiral. My eyes were glued, it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It started spinning faster and faster and began to form a cone coming from the now circular cloud formation. Unfortunately (though fortunately for anyone who would have been in the path) it dissipated.

That's funnel cloud.

www.weather-photography.com...
That site has very nice collection of different phenomons.


And looks like it was tornado which caused at least some damage of Birmingham.
www.flickr.com...:birmingham%2Ctornado/tagmode:all/


Also there's nothing strange with tornadoes in these places, tornodos can happen anywhere where there's possibility of thunderstorms.
And they're nothing new.
Biggest tornado outbreak of Finland was in 1932 and it moved railroad cars, widest paths were 500 m wide, longest continuous track 39km and some of of those were propably F3s...
And remember Finland is as north as Alaska!

So only thing which varies is just how propable strong enough thunderstorms/how strong tornados are created and how often/propable right conditions are.
Thing what makes central US as such "tornado alley" is strong differing air masses colliding over it which make it very fertile ground for strong thunderstorms and especially supercells.



And this is where climate change might come to play, remember that global warming doesn't increase temperature evenly but changes current weather patterns, causes extremeties to become more stronger so it could well mean more widespread tornado outbreaks in areas where they're currently rare.

I live in south-west england, I know sometimes there tornadoes in the bristol channel.

My fiancé lives in iowa, first time the tornado siren went of went down to the basement , *getting a little scared*... then the guy on the radio said its near a town that was near us, *getting more scared*, then I see a tree literally flying like a bullet smack into someones house. *crapping my pants*. Il have to get used to them when I start living in the mid-west, but hopefully they'll stay out of England for now , most of us dont have basements......

Vorta

According to the news this is actually not that unusual.

They say that around 130 reports of this type of weather are made in the UK every year.

The unusual part is that they do not usually hit urban areas.

Still, we are having a bad summer this year, so little sun.

One thing I noticed from this news story, which I think Is worth watching was the frequency of Tornados that day in the UK. Now I know that the conditions to trigger one therefore can and is the ideal time to create more, but is this widespread pattern normal in the UK?

29th July 2005
Birmingham Tornado link



Then:

A tornado has swept through a Lincolnshire village, tearing off part of the church roof.

Lincolnshire Tornado


Thats strange if you ask me however then:

A clear-up operation was beginning on Friday morning after a tornado caused damage in parts of Peterborough.

Peterborough Tornado

Now In the original piece on the BBC website

"We have an average of 33 reports of tornadoes in the UK each year but these are especially rare in built-up areas and there has not been one of this strength in many years," said a Met Office spokesperson.

Soo from the horses mouth 33 a year but 3 happened in one day!

However if you look at A map of the UK there is a vaguely straight line between the events from one part of the country to the other.

Now im not saying what caused this but hey the UK could have its own 'Tornado Alley'....but seriously I wonder if this pattern is normal in the UK.

MischeviouslyWatchingAWaterTornadoGoDownAsTheBathEmpties

[edit on 1-8-2005 by MischeviousElf]

Originally posted by MischeviousElf
However if you look at A map of the UK there is a vaguely straight line between the events from one part of the country to the other.

Collision line of air masses...
Also there can be long parallel series of thunderstorms when right kind air mass moves over area.
But thunderstorm line is more typical for colliding air masses, also if those happened pretty much same time it means collision of air masses.